Pests
by PutMoneyInThyPurse
Summary: And don't come back, or I'll treat you the way restaurants are supposed to treat pests!" Do you think Linguini hung onto his anger till morning? Me neither.


"..and don't come back, or I'll treat you the way restaurants are _supposed_ to treat pests!"

He slammed the door, panting, turning back to lean against it. For a moment, he just stood there, seething with rage. His eyes swept the restaurant – it felt defiled, unclean. Betrayal was all he could feel. It filled his vision in a haze, making the friendly, familiar black-and-white tile and glowing copper somehow hateful, mocking.

Alfredo closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then another. He walked through the restaurant, assessing the damage, and, almost out of reflex, reached for his broom and began to sweep.

For several minutes, he lost himself in the familiar task. Used to cleaning by now, he swept up the ruined grapes, checked the pantry shelves, dusting, cleaning, erasing every trace of the rats' presence. There wasn't really all that much mess, he noted distractedly, but it was the violation by the rats, more than anything else, that made him feel he wanted to fumigate the restaurant.

_Rats_. Alfredo shuddered. "How could he?" he shook his head, straightening the cheeses on the rack and disposing of the entire Edam that had been tossed to the floor. "I trusted him! How could he, how _could_ he?" He swept the tiles viciously, trying to erase the shock, the violation, the sight, in his mind's eye, of hundreds of rats scurrying across the floor. "Rat," he muttered. Rat: disloyal, unfaithful, untrustworthy. Try as he might, he couldn't get the obsessive mantra out of his head; his mind seemed stuck on that one thought in an endless loop. "How… shit. How COULD he?!"

He blew out his breath through his teeth as he decided to mop the floor one final time, just to be sure. Clouds of steam billowed up off the hot water as it phut-phutted out of the tap, practically boiling, into the bucket, and Alfredo stared into the smoke, his mind a haze of anger and betrayal. "How could he?" He wrenched the brass spigot off violently. "After all I did for him…" No, that didn't seem right. "After all he did for me…" But that took him into avenues he didn't want to go, so he hefted the bucket in his arms and slammed it down onto the floor, sloshing water all over the place, muttering, "After all we've been through together…"

And out of the blue, the image came to him of the little chef, skittering backwards over the cobblestones out in the street, and the lost look in his eyes as Alfredo had hurled those final words at him. There'd been no anger, no defiance – just sadness and regret. And fear. Fear of _him._

Alfredo squeezed his eyes shut, but his gut twisted nonetheless.

"I'm not gonna feel sorry for him! He betrayed me! After I left the house and came looking for him to apolo…" His voice trailed off, echoing eerily in the quiet restaurant. "…gize… for..."

_For the things you said to him, right? You know **you** started it,_ niggled a little inner voice.

Alfredo really hated that voice. It always made him own up to things he really rather wouldn't confess to. He sloshed the water around the floor defiantly. Conscience wasn't right. Not this time. "So what? All I said to him was that he wasn't the only one who could cook, and to get his head on straight, and that I had to…"

_You 'had to'? You had to _what?_ Since when do _you_ "have to" anything in the cooking department without him?_

"Yeah, but I was stressed…"

_So you took it out on him._

That hurt Alfredo's heart, but he felt betrayed, dammit! "But I was coming back to apologize, and HE was BETRAYING me. One little slip and he turns on me?"

_Turns on you? _

"Well, what do you call it?" He knew anyone watching would probably think he was crazy, but he didn't care.

He'_s not the one who drove you away and told you never to come back. He didn't say things that can't be unsaid._

Alfredo quashed the gut-wrench that came unbidden at the memory of his friend's suffering face. He'd been justified, he thought self-righteously. "He was stealing food!"

_From the restaurant you would never have had if he hadn't brought you those papers? Where the only reason you're the top chef is through his effort? He's your partner_._ He has as much right to be here as you. To feed his family here every night if he wants._

"His.. family? Oh dammit… Partner… right… He… I…" Alfredo dumped the mop back in the bucket, folded his palms over the wooden handle, and rested his head on his hands. Again there rose unbidden the hurt and grief in those expressive eyes – such a plea for understanding, such a desperate desire to explain himself, to talk it out, and yet, the certain, sad knowledge that he would not get the chance – that it was over.

Alfredo felt his eyes sting. "Oh, Little Chef…" He'd seen that look, but he'd been too angry to stop, to listen. "I never even gave him a chance to explain."

_He'd probably have had a good explanation, too._

"I…" I threw him out without even talking to him. Twice, if you count this afternoon. He rubbed a hand over his face, hard, as though to erase what had just happened. At some sort of subliminal level he was reassured that he hadn't hurt his smaller friend when he'd hit him with the broom, he'd seemed to be walking fine…

…and then the truth of what he'd done slammed into him, jolting him. He'd hit his little friend! He'd thrown him out and cast slurs on his species and _hit_ him! Alfredo gulped, the tears burning his eyes now. "I _swore_ he'd never be treated like that again! I promised myself!" 

_And look how you kept that promise, huh? Oh, sure, you're all for equality as long as he was useful to you.. but the minute there was a quarrel, you used his species against him. Fair-weather friend._

Stricken, Alfredo looked up, running to the door. He threw it open. "Little Chef! Little Chef!" he called out into the cool night air. Somewhere in the distance, a clock struck four in the morning. "Little Chef!" Linguini called, the wind carrying his voice away. "Come back! I'm sorry!..."

The only response was his voice echoing off the ancient stones of the courtyard.

Staring into the night, Alfredo heard the voice of conscience, dully, though it was drowned out by the guilt and sorrow in his heart._ Remember that look on his face? **You** put it there. The one human he trusted. Not Skinner, not Pompidou – you, his friend. That was your gift to him – the harsh lesson about interspecies friendship._

The tears slipped free, finally, as the cruel, degrading words he'd spoken echoed in his head. The wind dried them almost instantly – the night was chilly, even though it was high summer. Where was his friend sleeping now, was he okay? Did he really believe Linguini despised him? His stomach clenched, acid in his guts. "Little Chef?" Only the wind answered him. "Come back, please! I…" He hesitated, then, knowing it was true, he blurted, "I love you! I never meant …"

But the voice of conscience was relentless. _Love? You're a fine one to talk about love. You don't even know what the word means. Remember what your Mamma used to say? "Love is patient; love is kind… never selfish, nor quick to take offense; love thinks no evil." You were all of those and more. You didn't even **try** to understand._

"But I… I did come back to apologize…" Linguini looked out into the empty night, as empty as he felt. His body sagged. "I never meant to hurt him."

**_Hurt_**_ him? You **destroyed** him. And for what? Some cheese? A few grapes?_

Linguini shook his head, helpless with regret. "I didn't mean it. I do respect him. I really care about him, I swear. I…." His voice cracked. "Little… Chef?"

There was no answering squeak, no warm, affectionate smile. No response, and as Linguini stood there, he began to rediscover what it meant to feel truly alone.

"He's… not coming back, is he?" Linguini asked of the Paris night.

And the thought came, stark and unvarnished: _Nice going, Linguini. Now you've thrown away your lucky charm, what're you gonna do?_

The realization hit him like a bolt from the blue, erasing even the grief at the loss of his best friend. "Oh SHIT! _Ego!_" There would be no Little Chef to save his _derrière_ when that Dracula of a critic arrived, and the all-encompassing terror of that realization sent chills through his entire body. "He'll eat me alive! What'm I gonna do? Oh Lord, what'm I gonna do?"

He turned his back on the dark night and bolted into the restaurant. Without the Little Chef he was nothing, and Ego was coming – God, the man terrified him even with Little Chef on his side, and without him… "What'm I gonna do?"

Frantically, he rushed into the office, grabbing a copy of _Anyone Can Cook_. "I'll have to… I'll have to…" Opening the immense tome on the desk, he clicked on the desk lamp and began leafing desperately through the pages, reading as though his life depended upon it, though the words swam before his eyes. God, he was doomed… doomed…doomed...

It must have been seven o'clock in the morning when sleep finally claimed him. His dreams were not kind.


End file.
